Parroco

Once a hack is completed (or an incomplete version is deemed suitable for an interim release) it is released onto the Internet for others to play. The generally-accepted way to do this is by making a patch (in IPS format) that can be applied to an unmodified ROM of the game that was hacked. This, and usually some form of documentation, is put in a ZIP file and uploaded somewhere. IPS is a format for recording the differences between two binary files (in this case, between the unmodified and hacked ROMs) and is suitable for ROM hacks. It is not certain what "IPS" stands for, although International Patching System and Intelligent Patching System are commonly believed to be the case.The purpose of distributing a hack in patch form is to avoid the legal aspects of distributing entire ROM images; the patch records only what has changed in the ROM, hence distributing it does not distribute parts of the original game. A patch is also smaller than the full ROM image (an NES ROM can run anywhere from 40KB-512KB; a Super NES ROM can (usually) go up to 4MB). The use of patches does not eliminate copyright issues because the patches may be considered derivative works; however, corporations generally ignore them as long as they are not distributed with the ROMs.